


yeild

by ZombieBabs



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blasphemy, Enemies to Friends, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Injuries, Pre-Slash, Sharing a Bed, Touch-Starved, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:00:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29210004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZombieBabs/pseuds/ZombieBabs
Summary: “Are you—?” Francis can hardly believe it, but he’d bet his wings on it. “Are you drunk?”“S’what if I am? Hmm?” Fitzjames lists to the right and Francis has to stop himself from yanking Fitzjames out of oncoming traffic. “Jealous?”the Eternal Law/The Terror (TV) mash-up no one asked for, but i am nevertheless proud to present.
Relationships: Francis Crozier/James Fitzjames
Comments: 7
Kudos: 45





	yeild

They’re fighting. It’s not uncommon, exactly, for them to be fighting. In the millennia that Francis has inhabited this human body, doing Her work, it seems like Fitzjames has always been there, tossing insults as well as wrenches into his plans. But it’s the first time in decades—centuries?—that the fallen angel has reverted to physical violence.

Francis ducks, but the punch is sloppily thrown and it misses by about a nautical mile. He pivots, hands clenched into fists, ready to counter, only to watch as the tall, dark figure of James Fitzjames crumples into a miserable heap in the gutter.

Fitzjames turns his face to the sky, rain running in rivulets down his pale, angular face, his shoulder-length hair plastered against his skin, and laughs. He laughs too-loud and too-long, frightening a family of four, causing the two mothers to scoop up their children, a boy and a girl, and dart across the busy street, shooting deep, disapproving frowns at Fitzjames all the while.

“Fitzjames,” Francis growls, eyes narrowed. He lowers his hands, but doesn’t unclench them, half-convinced the fallen angel is up to his old tricks.

All at once, Fitzjames stops laughing. His eyes flash demonic black, sclera and all, before fading back to human brown. He hisses at Francis, but he doesn’t move from his spot in the gutter.

Something is wrong. Very wrong. Francis’ angel senses—as Sophia likes to call them—are going off, damn them, ringing like church bells in his ears.

_Help_ , they say without using words, intangible fingers tickling at his empathy. _Trouble_. _Help._

Except, who is he supposed to be helping? Aside from the humans passing them by, giving them a rather wide berth, at that, aside from the vehicles carefully swerving around Fitzjames, there’s no one here. No one except...

_Fitzjames_? That can’t be right. His sworn enemy? The fallen angel who has been nothing but a thorn in Francis’ side from the time Francis touched down on Earth? 

His angel senses ring again. _Help_.

It’s as much of a confirmation as Francis is going to get. What could She possibly be thinking?

“James,” Francis tries, approaching the fallen angel like he would a rabid animal, hands up to show he isn’t armed. 

“You don’t—” Fitzjames rubs at his eye. He tries tossing wet hair out of his face, but it’s as good as glued in place by the steady fall of rain. “You don’t get to call me that.” 

Francis watches as Fitzjames sways, his thin lips pulled down in a deep frown. His dark eyes are hooded, his brows knitted together, and he blinks too slowly, too carefully, too often, as if he’s forgotten the mechanics of it.

“Are you—?” Francis can hardly believe it, but he’d bet his wings on it. “Are you _drunk_?”

“S’what if I am? Hmm?” Fitzjames lists to the right and Francis has to stop himself from yanking Fitzjames out of oncoming traffic. “ _Jealous_?”

Francis presses his lips into a thin line and ignores the jab. He hasn’t had a drop of alcohol since the Middle Ages, since the plague sent him seeking comfort at the bottom of a bottle. Several hundred bottles, in fact. “Goodnight, Fitzjames. Try not to get yourself discorporated, yeah? Even human children know not to lay in the bloody street.”

Francis turns, doing his best to ignore the bells clanging in his ears as he heads toward the Belfry. He’d helped, hadn’t he? He’d warned Fitzjames to get out of the street. Except, he makes it as far as the next block before he comes to an abrupt stop.

His angel senses are _wailing_ in the back of his head. No longer bells but air raid sirens. Billboards with neon block lettering flash just behind his eyes.

_HELP. TROUBLE. HELP._

He blinks and turns his face toward the heavens, heavy rain drops splashing across his forehead, cheeks, and chin. “You have got to be kidding me.”

She doesn’t answer, but She never does. Still, She’s made it quite obvious what he’s meant to do.

That doesn’t mean he has to _like_ it.

Francis does an about-face and strides back the way he came. He finds Fitzjames right where he left him, folded over himself like a giant, waterlogged pretzel.

Without any ceremony, Francis drags Fitzjames upright.

Fitzjames squawks in wordless, indignant protest, wheeling his arms until he finds some semblance of balance.

With his hand clenched around designer suit jacket, Francis marches Fitzjames down the street, surprised when he only catches a muttered “buy a demon dinner, first” from the fallen angel.

They get a few strange looks from the humans they pass, but Francis just smiles his best my-buddy-has-had-too-much-to-drink-and-now-I-have-to-put-him-to-bed smile and gets a mix of sympathetic I’ve-been-there-too-pal-good-luck smiles and please-keep-that-drunk-guy-away-from-me-in-case-he-hurls grimaces in return.

“You’re not serious,” Fitzjames says when he finally realizes where Francis is leading him.

“I am,” Francis says. He doesn’t say, ‘Unfortunately.’

Francis runs into the long line of Fitzjames’ back when the fallen angel plants his rain-soaked Italian loafers and refuses to go any further.

“Let’s go,” Francis says. He shakes Fitzjames, but it’s like the fallen angel has gone from limp spaghetti noodle to sculpted marble.

“If you’re going to kill me, you’ll have to do it here. Not Silna’s Home for Goodie-Goodie Angels.”

“Keep Her name out of your mouth, hellspawn,” Francis says, but it’s mostly automatic. “And don’t be dramatic. I’m not going to kill you.”

Fitzjames turns to look at Francis, frowning his disbelief. 

“Well, not today, at any rate,” Francis concedes. “And I’m an angel. Angels don’t kill. We smite.”

“What about your choir? Are they in the mood for some good ol’ fashioned smiting?”

Francis rolls his eyes. “The _garrison_ won’t touch you. They know you’re mine.”

The curl of Fitzjames’ lips is unmistakable in the yellow glow of the street light buzzing overhead. “I’m yours, am I?”

Francis shakes Fitzjames again, hoping the fallen angel is far too drunk to notice the furious blush staining his cheeks an unbecoming shade of tomato red. “Shut up and keep moving.”

When they arrive at the Belfry, Francis assumes Fitzjames will make his escape as soon as Francis lets go of him, allowing Francis to wash his hands of him and call it a night, _trouble_ be damned. Fitzjames, however, leans carelessly against the wall while Francis digs into the pocket of his coat for his keys.

“Why don’t you just miracle it open?” Fitzjames' brows draw down in genuine question. He lifts a bottle of wine that he certainly hadn’t been holding a second before and takes a long pull.

“Why don’t you miracle your face?” Francis grumbles, turning the key in the lock and pushing the door open.

“S’wrong with my face?” Fitzjames asks, just as genuine, but follows Francis inside without waiting for an answer.

Francis removes his coat and hangs it to dry with the rest of the outerwear dripping on the antique coat rack. He toes off his shoes and motions for Fitzjames to do the same. The freshly shined black loafers stand out in stark contrast to the well-worn sandals, grass-stained sneakers, scuffed boots, and—in Sophia’s case—leopard print ballet flats made out of recycled water bottles already placed in a neat line against the wall. 

Not for the first time does Francis wonder if he’s doing the right thing, bringing Fitzjames here. A fallen angel in a house full of angels.

To his credit, Fitzjames doesn’t appear to be nervous. Or to be plotting anything nefarious. He simply brings the wine back to his lips and drinks.

“C’mon, you,” Francis says.

He’s tempted to bring the fallen angel straight up to his room, but he knows he’s only courting disaster if the garrison finds Fitzjames in the Belfry without any prior warning. So he leads the fallen angel into the drawing room, where most of the garrison will be at this time of night.

“Captain!” Thomas Jopsen says, a smile lighting up his youthful-looking face. The smile fades almost immediately when the angel sees Fitzjames.

All chatter comes to an abrupt halt. A dozen pairs of wide eyes stare first at Fitzjames, then at Francis, then back at Fitzjames.

“Captain?” asks Thomas Blanky. He makes a vague motion toward an unsheathed sword propped carelessly in the corner.

“Aren’t you all _adorable_?” Fitzjames says, his expression twisted in an approximation of childlike glee. Like he’s just been presented with a basket full of puppies and not a company of concerned angels.

“Stand down, all of you,” Francis says. 

He turns to Fitzjames, pointing a finger at his chest. “And you, hellspawn, I know it’s difficult for you, but can you at least _try_ not to antagonize an entire room full of angels? You do understand how badly that could go for you, don’t you?”

“Been there, done that, got the bloody T-shirt,” Fitzjames says before his lips stretch in a shark-line grin and he salutes the room with his bottle of wine in obvious mock apology. He then tilts his head back and upends the bottle with the apparent intent of draining it.

Annoyed, Francis swipes the wine from him and shoves the bottle at the nearest angel. The angel, to his credit, does not immediately pee his pants, but holds the wine bottle at arms’ length like he’s just been handed a particularly volatile explosive with a countdown timer ticking down single digit seconds. 

Fitzjames narrows his eyes at Francis but doesn’t try to retrieve the bottle, nor does he summon up another.

“All of you know Fitzjames. As long as he is under this roof, he is our guest. And Fitzjames promises to be civil as long as you show him the same courtesy, isn’t that right?”

Fitzjames holds up two fingers. “Scouts’ honor.”

Fitzjames sways and Francis grabs his arm to steady him. “Alright, company. One last thing. Sophia’s job isn’t to clean up behind you, so I expect this place to be ship-shape by the time you clear off for bed. Understood?”

The room fills with an uncertain chorus of “Captain!”

“Right,” Francis says. He pushes Fitzjames into the hall. “Let’s go.”

Francis directs Fitzjames toward the stairs. He watches, half-expecting the fallen angel to unsheathe his sword, to unveil whatever dastardly plan he has up his sleeves, damp as they may be, when Fitzjames trips, catching himself against the wall. 

The fallen angel presses his forehead against the ancient wood paneling, his face hidden behind a curtain of damp, curling hair, before letting his body slump into a heap upon the stairs. He rolls his head to look at Francis and his eyes are demon black.

“You’re slipping, James,” Francis says. He reaches out to touch the corner of Fitzjames’ eye, but Fitzjames smacks his hand away.

“Don’t call me that.”

“It’s your name.”

“It isn’t.”

Francis sighs. It isn’t, no more than Francis is his own name, but it _is_ the name Fitzjames chose for himself when he Fell. 

“Can you stand?” Francis asks.

“Prob’ly.”

When Fitzjames doesn’t move, Francis puts his hands on his hips. “ _Will_ you stand?”

Fitzjames gives Francis a slow blink. He rearranges his long limbs and pushes himself up, using the wall to steady himself.

To keep Fitzjames from overbalancing and tumbling down the stairs, taking Francis with him, Francis places a hand on the fallen angel’s lower back. Beneath the cold, wet fabric of Fitzjames’ suit, the fallen angel trembles. 

“We need to get you out of these wet clothes.”

Fitzjames snickers, but stays blissfully silent as Francis shows him into his bedroom.

The room is neither large nor small. It’s clean, yet cluttered, an antique sleigh bed taking up most of the room along with the matching desk, chair, and dresser. Towers of books teeter precariously on most surfaces.

“Not quite what I imagined,” Fitzjames says, taking in his surroundings. He peers at a shelf. “Is that a ship in a bottle?”

“Good eye,” Francis says, going to the dresser and pulling out clean, dry clothes. “It’s amazing what you can learn on the internet these days.”

Fitzjames makes a face like he wants so very much to insult Francis and his hobbies, but is holding off only for the sake of his earlier promise.

Francis tosses a pile of clothing onto the bed. “Put that on. I’ll ask Sophia to send anything that needs to be dry cleaned out tomorrow.”

Something in Fitzjames’ expression shifts. He crosses his arms over his chest and he looks every inch the villain Francis has faced down countless times before. “You do it.”

“Send out your dry cleaning?”

Fitzjames uncrosses his arms and holds them open. “Undress me.”

Francis rolls his eyes. “James—”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Fitzjames hisses, his eyes flooded pools of inky black, “call me that.”

Francis pinches the bridge of his nose. “ _Fine_. Just dial it back, alright? The garrison is nervous enough as it is without you being overdramatic.”

Fitzjames glares, but closes his eyes and breathes in. When he opens them again, one eye is human brown while the other remains demon black.

“Ja—” Francis cuts himself off and tries again. “ _Fitz_ james. Your eye.”

Fitzjames rubs at the offending eye, but the color doesn’t return to it. “I can’t make it go back.”

“You can’t—”

“Just. Give it a moment.”

Francis holds up his hands. “Okay. Alright. We’ll give it a moment.”

Head bowed, Fitzjames stares at the bed, his lean frame wracked with tremors. He rubs again at his eye, looking for all the world an overgrown, exhausted toddler and Francis shakes his head at his own angelic capacity for compassion. He crosses the short distance to Fitzjames, turns the man bodily towards him, and pushes Fitzjames’ jacket off his shoulders.

“What—?” Fitzjames’ mismatched eyes search Francis, more than a little suspicious. 

“Make up your mind,” Francis grumbles, hanging the jacket along the back of the chair. He returns to Fitzjames, hands making quick work of the buttons on his expertly tailored, charcoal gray, zillion thread-count shirt. The sodden cotton hangs open, revealing a flat expanse of pale skin. 

Francis takes Fitzjames’ hand, popping the buttons at his wrist. He repeats the action with Fitzjames’ other hand, trying desperately to ignore how absurdly _delicate_ they feel inside his own, then peels the shirt away from his skin. He drapes the shirt over the seat of the chair to dry.

Francis reaches for Fitzjames’ belt, but the fallen angel flinches away. “Can do it m’self.”

Francis raises his brow and, for a second, they stare at each other. It would feel almost like a typical day between them, angel versus demon, good versus supremely annoying, except Fitzjames is standing half-naked and (more than) half-drunk in Francis’ bedroom.

Fitzjames huffs, breaking the spell. He unbuckles his belt and, with one smooth motion, shucks off the rest of his clothing—trousers, boxer briefs, and all. He turns to place the crumpled pile on the chair with the rest of his clothing, revealing a savage mesh of fresh lacerations over a mottled background of dark purple, green, and blue bruising.

Francis stares.

When Fitzjames turns, his lips curl in a hideous facsimile of a smile. “Like what you see?”

“No,” Francis says, voice catching on the word. “What happened to you?”

Fitzjames narrows his mismatched eyes at Francis, as if the answer is obvious and the only possible reason Francis could be asking is to cause him more pain. “I was punished.”

“...for Falling?”

Fitzjames’ face screws up in something like confusion before he barks out, “No, you soft-boiled egg. For _losing_.”

“Oh.”

“For Falling.” Fitzjames shakes his head with an indelicate snort. “I was _celebrated_ for Falling.” 

When Fitzjames reaches for the cotton T-shirt, Francis grabs his wrist. “Is that why you’re not healing? Because you’re being punished?”

Fitzjames pulls his arm away from Francis, not quite meeting his gaze. “Well, obviously.”

Not for the first time in his long life does Francis curse the cruelty of demons. It is, however, the first time he does so on behalf of another demon. “Right. Well, before you bleed all over everything, let’s get you cleaned up.”

Fitzjames was whipped, that much Francis knows for certain. The open welts start at his shoulders and continue in a cross-hatch of misery down to the swell of his ass. Francis has no idea how the fallen angel has remained upright, all this time, but it’s not exactly as if he can sit without suffering, either.

“Lay down,” Francis says, pointing at the bed. “On your stomach.”

Fitzjames surprises Francis by doing as he’s told, doubly so by doing it without a smart-ass remark falling from his lips. 

“No miracles,” he mutters into the quilt. And then, even more surprising, he adds, “Please.”

Francis huffs, unbuttoning his own cuffs. “I wasn’t planning to set either of us alight tonight, thanks.”

Fitzjames mutters something that sounds suspiciously like “Not with that attitude you won’t,” but Francis ignores him in favor of throwing his own wet clothes in a pile on the floor and changing into a pair of warm sweatpants and a thin cotton T-shirt.

“Don’t move,” Francis says. “I think we’ve got a first aid kit around here somewhere.”

“Mmfph,” Fitzjames says, burying his face into the pillow of his folded arms.

When Francis opens the door, he’s not exactly surprised to be met with a gaggle of angels, eyes wide, looking remarkably like a guilty gang of school children caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar. Francis rolls his eyes and makes a shooing motion. The angels scatter, tripping over themselves in the saddest excuse for a retreat that Francis has ever witnessed. A half-second later, the house is filled with the slams of heavy doors and Francis shakes his head with a small, indulgent smile.

He has to dig through the worrying assortment of items that have found their way beneath the kitchen sink, but the first aid kit is exactly where he remembers putting it. The collection of medicines inside the box have all long since expired, but it’s not as if ibuprofen will have much effect when it comes to a demonic flogging. Even if it is marketed as extra strength.

Francis takes the stairs two at a time, not unaware that he’s just left a demon alone in his bedroom unsupervised, but Fitzjames doesn’t appear to have moved in the minutes that Francis has been gone. In fact, he’s so still and quiet that he almost looks to be asleep.

Francis closes the door behind him, hoping the soft click will be enough to draw Fitzjames’ attention, but Fitzjames doesn’t move. Francis pads across the room, the hardwood floor cool against the bare soles of his feet. On the bed, Fitzjames shivers.

“Fitzjames?”

“Francis.”

“Oh good, you’re awake.”

Fitzjames raises his head, just a little, watching Francis through a curtain of dark hair. “‘Course I’m awake. In the bloody belly of the beast, aren’t I?”

Francis opens the first aid kit, setting out bandages and tape and gauze. “I know you won’t actually believe me when I tell you this, but you’re safe here. From my side and—”

Francis bites back the rest, but Fitzjames finishes it for him. “And mine.”

“Think of it as a sanctuary. Of sorts. For as long as you need it.”

Fitzjames pushes himself up to sitting, his one demonic eye burning. “Why? What do you want?”

Francis can’t exactly tell him about the not-so-gentle nudge he’d received, can’t tell him about _help_ or _trouble_ , so he shrugs. “Nothing.”

Fitzjames shakes his head. His hands clench and unclench in his lap. “You must want _something_. You’ve got me at your mercy and, what? You’re just going to put Band-Aids on my boo-boos and tuck me away on some sort of heavenly stay-cation? After which, you’re just going to let me waltz out the front door and be on my merry, godforsaken way?”

“She hasn’t forsaken you,” Francis says, quietly.

It’s the wrong thing to say. Both of Fitzjames’ eyes flare black and the shadow of burning wings singes the wall behind the fallen angel.

Francis has just enough time to brace himself before Fitzjames throws himself across the bed. They scuffle, both evenly matched strength for strength, but Fitzjames is injured and uncoordinated from the wine. Francis ends up straddling the fallen angel, holding Fitzjames’ face into the mattress, Fitzjames’ arm twisted behind his back.

“Yield,” Francis says, out of breath.

Fitzjames snarls like a caged tiger and tries to buck Francis off of him. 

“Yield,” Francis says, again.

Fitzjames struggles harder and Francis wrenches Fitzjames’ arm higher, just shy of dislocating his shoulder. “Yield, damn you!”

Fitzjames lets out a high-pitched keening whine and finally goes still.

Francis doesn’t move for several seconds. Then, slowly, with an abundance of caution, he releases his grip on Fitzjames’ hair.

When Fitzjames doesn’t lift his head, Francis smooths the fallen angel’s dark locks, the strands tangled after the rain and their tussle. “I don’t want anything from you, James. Just to help you.”

Fitzjames laughs into the mattress. “Funny way of showing it.”

Francis snorts. “Yeah, well, you started it.”

Several of the gashes on Fitzjames’ back glisten in the dim light of Francis’ bedroom, the reopened wounds weeping fresh blood.

Francis frowns, wondering at the sudden urge to press his lips to each hurt, to seal each one closed with a kiss. “Will you let me? Help you?”

For a long time, there’s nothing but silence. Then, Fitzjames lets out a strained, “ _Please_. I yield.” 

Francis releases Fitzjames’ arm. Fitzjames groans in relief and tucks it beneath him, cradling it to him. “Stupid, useless body.”

“It’s not so useless,” Francis says.

Fitzjames _hmms_ , not quite in agreement, as Francis opens a roll of gauze with his teeth. The fallen angel flinches as Francis sets about cleaning the first of his wounds, but he settles, holding himself stiff and miserable as Francis works. There are so many of the lacerations that Francis wonders if he should just wrap Fitzjames in bandages like some kind of infernal mummy, but doubts he could get away with it.

“There,” he says as he smooths the tape over the last bandage. “Let’s get you dressed.”

Except for the hitch of his shoulders, Fitzjames doesn’t move.

“C’mon. Up you get, hellspawn.” For the first time the insult feels like something else, almost like an endearment.

When Fitzjames still doesn’t stir, Francis grips Fitzjames’ shoulder and squeezes it. “James?”

With a great, shuddering breath, Fitzjames sits up. Both of his eyes have reverted back to human brown, but they’re glassy and rimmed with red. 

Francis steps back, the breath caught in his throat, when he realizes Fitzjames’ cheeks are wet.

_Trouble_ , Francis thinks, blinking in shock. _Help._

Fitzjames wipes at his face only for more tears to fall. He gives a watery laugh. “Be an angel and pass me that change of clothes, will you?”

Wordlessly, Francis hands the pile to Fitzjames. While Fitzjames struggles into the T-shirt and flannel pants, the hem of which brushes the tops of his bony ankles, Francis rearranges the first aid kit, snapping the clasps closed and setting the much lighter box on the shortest and least likely to collapse mountain of books stacked on the desk.

Eventually, however, he does need to look at the fallen angel standing awkwardly beside his bed, so Francis turns, noting that the tears seem to have stopped, for now. “Alright, Fitzjames?”

“I’m _tired_ , Francis.”

Francis flashes a weak smile. He’s never once seen a demon break down before, especially not one as old and as powerful as Fitzjames. “No offense, old friend, but you look it.”

Fitzjames’ laugh is more breath than anything, shaky and uncertain. 

“Come on,” Francis says, turning down the quilt on his bed before he can think better about it. “To bed with you.”

“Are you going to read me a story, too? Tuck me in?”

Francis gives him a look. It’s a look not unlike the look Francis gives errant angels when he catches them misbehaving. “If that will move things along.”

Fitzjames ducks his head and, once again, surprises Francis by doing what he’s told. He slips beneath the quilt, pulling it up to his chest as he sits against the headboard.

“All the way down, demon. Or do you intend to sleep sitting up?”

Fitzjames chews on his bottom lip before shuffling down the mattress until the only parts of him peeking out from beneath the quilt are his dark eyes and the mop of tangled hair spread out on the pillow. He stares at Francis, expression wary.

“Sleep,” Francis says. “You’ll be safe here, I give you my word.”

He crosses the short distance to the door, his hand outstretched to turn the knob, when Fitzjames sits up. “Where are you going?”

Francis blinks at the intensity in Fitzjames’ voice, the familiar haughty demand of it layered over something new. Not quite fear, but something like it. Something strangely…

Vulnerable?

It’s not a word that Francis would normally associate with the fallen angel, but he finds it fits, in this instance.

“Graham’s on assignment. He won’t mind if I borrow his bunk.”

Fitzjames shakes his head. Long, slender fingers worry at the quilt.

“Ah,” Francis says, when the fallen angel doesn’t say anything. 

Surely Francis has done everything he can for the fallen angel. Brought him out of the pouring rain, cleaned him up, plastered him with bandages. Gave up his own bed. Surely he’s helped enough. Surely She doesn’t expect him to crawl into bed with a demon?

“Budge over, then,” he says, surprising both himself and Fitzjames.

He flicks off the light as the mattress groans, Fitzjames rolling to lay on his stomach. Francis climbs beneath the quilt and settles on his back, staring at the ceiling.

Francis counts the minutes by the _tick tick tick_ of Fitzjames’ silver watch, trying to ignore the heavy weight of Fitzjames’ eyes watching him in the dark.

“What happened to you, James?”

“Told you already. I lost.”

“No, I meant—” He’d meant, what happened to you to make you like _this_ , this teary-eyed, broken thing Francis had pulled from the gutter? But he doesn’t say that. “It’s not exactly as if— You must be—”

“Used to losing by now?”

Francis turns on his side to face Fitzjames. “My side takes a few blows now and then, but usually…”

“Your lot generally sends me and mine packing?”

Francis’ lip curls in a small smile. “That’s the polite way of putting it, I suppose.”

For a long time, Fitzjames doesn’t answer. Then, almost too quiet to be heard over the shifting and creaking of the Belfry, he asks, “Did you ever think why that might be?”

Francis blinks, then pushes himself up on one arm so he can study the fallen angel. Fitzjames’ eyes go wide, as if he expects Francis to haul back and slug him, but he doesn’t move away.

“You’re lying,” Francis growls, even though the fallen angel hasn’t actually said the words, hasn’t actually confessed to losing _on purpose_. “You’re a _demon_.”

“I’m perfectly aware of what I am,” Fitzjames snaps.

“Then, _why_?”

“They’re not...perfectly horrid creatures.”

Francis’ jaw drops open. “ _What_?”

“Oh, shut up,” Fitzjames says, pulling the quilt more tightly to him. “I don’t want the world to end, alright? I’d go absolutely out of my mind with boredom if my side got their way. Scorched Earth, endless pain and suffering, the golden age of television gone up in _literal_ smoke.”

With a somewhat dazed smile, Francis lays down again. He and Fitzjames have a minor tug-of-war with the quilt until Fitzjames relents, graciously surrendering a mere three inches of the patchwork blanket.

“I think, perhaps,” Francis says, reaching across the mattress to grasp Fitzjames’ wrist, “I’m supposed to save you.”

Fitzjames grins, his sharp canines glinting in the moonlight struggling through the single window above the desk. “Save me?”

“Recruit you, maybe?”

“And what if I don’t want to be recruited?”

Francis squeezes his wrist. “You would prefer to keep losing? To be punished for the rest of eternity?”

“Thought that’s all my kind were good for.”

“Maybe not.”

Fitzjames doesn’t answer, but Francis can almost see the thoughts whirling in that clever brain of his. He almost has him, if he can just— 

“I can’t promise you’ll be welcomed back into Her ranks.” When Fitzjames opens his mouth, Francis rushes to cut him off. “Nor, would I expect you to want that. But, you would be welcome _here_. You would have allies, protection. You would have a _home_ , James.”

Francis expects him to argue that he already has a home, a rather swanky one, at that, but Fitzjames turns his hand, tangling his fingers with Francis’ as he clasps their hands together. “What—what would you have me do?”

“I know you better than to try and put a leash on you. I won’t try to discourage you from your drinking and your tempting and whatever else your lot gets up to in their spare time.”

“Oh, thank you, Francis.”

Francis rolls his eyes. “How about a consultancy?” 

Fitzjames raises a dark eyebrow.

“For now. Until the garrison gets used to you. Until they can trust your sword at their backs.”

“That’s fair,” Fitzjames says. It’s not quite an acceptance of Francis’ offer, but Francis can tell they’re getting close.

A minute stretches into two, five minutes into ten before Fitzjames breaks the silence. “Alright. You win. But once word gets out, my side won’t be happy. You’ll have the Fallen at your doorstep from now until the sun explodes.”

“We can hold our own.” Francis sweeps his thumb over Fitzjames’ knuckle. “Can you? Or will switching sides just be putting you in more danger?”

“Nothing,” Fitzjames sighs, eyes slipping shut in something that—if Francis is not mistaken—looks a lot like pleasure, “that I can’t handle.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Francis says. And then, unable to blunt the edge of triumph in his voice, he says, “I’ll have to find you a bed.” 

The house is rather full these days, but they should be able to make it work. If they just— 

“I like this one well enough,” Fitzjames murmurs, interrupting Francis’ mental rearrangement of the Belfry. He burrows further beneath the quilt, dragging his and Francis’ joined hands until they are both trapped between the burning heat of his body and the lumpy coils of the mattress.

Francis, of course, has no choice but to shift closer to the fallen angel. “And if I were to take Graham’s bed?”

“I’d like that one better.”

Francis laughs. “Go to sleep, you loon.”

“Beautiful bird, the loon.”

“Don’t make me smother you with my pillow.”

Fitzjames peeks his face out of the quilt to grin at Francis. 

Francis blinks, taken aback. How long has it been since he’s seen Fitzjames smile? Really smile, not that dastardly thing he wears when he and Francis are going head-to-head. A hundred years? A thousand?

He wants to trace that smile, to record the surprising radiance of it with the pads of his fingers.

He wants to press his own lips to that smile, to dart out his tongue and _taste_ it.

Francis shakes his head, halting the train of his thoughts in its tracks. “ _Sleep_ , James.”

“Fine, fine,” Fitzjames says, but the words are a garbled mess beneath a huge, jaw-cracking yawn.

The fallen angel’s warmth is heady in the usual chill of Francis’ room. Francis allows his eyes to grow heavy and is very nearly asleep when Fitzjames breathes out, “I missed you, Francis.”

Francis pictures him, all shining Love and Peace and Resplendence, replaced by the burning thing of Hatred and Temptation Francis has called his nemesis for all these years, juxtaposed with the weary, injured creature in his bed. Not quite Good, but not quite Evil, either. Broken, but not unfixable. Chaotic, but only for the joy of it. Like a Trickster god, except—if Fitzjames is to be believed—not entirely neutral. A demon on the side of the angels.

Francis squeezes their joined hands, as much as he can with his digits having gone numb.

Fitzjames squeezes back.

Sleep takes Fitzjames first and Francis shortly after.

Francis wakes to the sun shining into his face. With a grimace, he throws an arm over his eyes. The same arm, he slowly comes to realize, that had been trapped beneath Fitzjames when he’d gone to sleep.

He turns his head and stares with bleary eyes at the empty bed beside him.

Had it all been a dream?

Except, no. A glance at the desk shows the first aid kit still perched on top of a mountain of books. The waste bin is full of blood-stained gauze. 

Had Fitzjames left? Had it all been some sick ploy for Francis’ sympathy? Some kind of demonic game?

Francis frowns. Could he really have been so stupid? Letting a demon into a house full of angels. The garrison can fend for themselves, but— 

Heart racing, Francis tears himself out from the bed. 

The house is silent when he opens the bedroom door, which doesn’t tell Francis much. Except his nose is met with the tantalizing smell of bacon. Coffee, too.

Brow furrowed, Francis takes the stairs two at a time.

He arrives in the kitchen to see Fitzjames, still in the ill-fitting T-shirt and flannel pants, wielding not a sword, but a spatula. A gaggle of angels stand just out of spatula range, watching the fallen angel with wide, wary eyes. Fitzjames doesn’t seem to mind the audience, however. In fact, he seems to be in the middle of telling a story.

“And so I said—Oh, Francis, _darling_ , you’re just in time. I’ve made breakfast!”

Fitzjames piles a plate full of scrambled eggs, bacon, and orange slices and pushes it into Francis’s hands. He places a warm hand on the small of Francis’ back and guides him through the throng of angels to sit at the table beside Sophia, who gives him a wholly human look of amused confusion and concern.

Before Fitzjames can flutter off, back to the bacon burning to a delightful crisp in the cast iron pan on the stove, Francis can’t help himself. With a sly smile, he catches Fitzjames’ hand and brings it to his lips, pressing a quick kiss to his knuckles. “Thank you, James, _dear_.”

Ignoring the horrified expressions of the garrison and the snicker Sophia barely manages to hide behind graceful, manicured fingers, Francis picks up his fork and digs into his breakfast.

Having Fitzjames here—if the fallen angel truly means to defect—could be _fun_ , he decides.

In fact, going by the mischief dancing in Fitzjames’ warm, brown eyes, it could be the most fun Francis has had in centuries.

His angel senses give a happy little hum in agreement and Francis, for the first time in as long as he can remember, grins.

**Author's Note:**

> this was my first foray into writing The Terror fanfic, but after watching Tobias Menzies _literally_ waltz around as a demon in Eternal Law, i couldn't _not_ write this. thanks for reading and i hope you'll leave a kudos or a comment if you enjoyed! <3


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